I had two hens, Kiwi and Egypt. As I posted in the Rainbow Bridge section, Egypt passed away yesterday. Kiwi has been sitting on air for almost 3 weeks. She is a cochin/silkie cross and they like to get broody. She's a hen I actually personally hatched and she's adorable and lays small white eggs. I felt bad that she would be alone and it's sometimes hard to introduce adult chickens into a new flock because they will pick on each other and Kiwi has always been the low man on the totem pole anyway. I called around and a feed store about an hour away had chicks. My mom and I drove out and picked up three, a Barred Rock, a French Maran [who will also be black and white/barred] and a cochin bantam.

Kiwi was totally excited when I brought them into the coop, she started talking to them immediately. I put them under her and they've been with her ever since following her around and laying under her when there is "danger" near. Chickens are so amazing to me because they can hatch and be self sufficient, or they can be shoved under a hen and learn who is "mom". That's so wild to me.

Anywho - here's some pictures of the kids. I have named the Barred Rock [the oldest looking/biggest one] Isis in honor of Egypt, and my mom named the Maran Maggie. Not sure on the little cochin yet - she will be small so I'm thinking 'Squirt' but I'm not sure yet.----

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It was a nice day so I grabbed a couple of pics of Seth and LiLo. LiLo was rolling in something and Seth was playing with what remains of his wubba.

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And lastly, my cat is a freak. He loves his carrier. Whenever I bring it in he gets into it [but then gets pissed because he knows we are going to the vet.] I take him in on a harness nowadays and bring him home in a carrier since he has to be sedated - I recently took him in for his yearly "everything" day and he's been sleeping in the crate every night since. Such a dork. We have clients that get scratched and bit over putting their cats in carriers and mine walks right in

His face looks a little weird... he's either having a herpes dermatitis flare up [which would be new for him] or he's scratching his face due to allergies. He got a depo-medrol injection the other day and his face doesn't seem to be worsening so I think it's due to his food allergies.

Your chicken story has got to be the funniest thing I have heard!! I didn't know chickens had such "codes of ethics" on who they hung out with and stuff. Those babies are just precious! And I guess they attach to any adult who pays attention to them?

Seth and his rubber-band body are adorable. It's like he does yoga the way he stretches out all the time.

iluvk9 wrote:8) Your chicken story has got to be the funniest thing I have heard!! I didn't know chickens had such "codes of ethics" on who they hung out with and stuff. Those babies are just precious! And I guess they attach to any adult who pays attention to them?

Seth and his rubber-band body are adorable. It's like he does yoga the way he stretches out all the time.

LiLo knows how to enjoy the simple things.

Those hens can be really evil! We got a rooster one time and had it separated from the hens by a fence, my hen Hawk was a really big nice Barred Rock hen and she bloodied him from the other side of the fence! They definitely have a hierarchy in the flock and if we had more hens we would have to be careful because the other hens WILL pick on the babies too.

Some hens have a tendency to brood/want to hatch eggs. In some of the breeds - like Barred Rocks this trait has been bred out of them because when a hen goes broody they will not lay. Barred Rocks are a multi purpose bird - you can eat them or use them for eggs. I've done this 2-3 times where I have placed babies from the feed store under a broody hen and the hen has accepted the chicks and the chicks have accepted the hen. If anything I think they realize that the hen will provide warmth and protection, but it's still funny to me because feed store chicks are hatched out in hatcheries meaning they hatch from the egg and from birth can figure out how to eat/survive without their mom. One of our hens hatched chicks for us and she would peck at the food and talk to her babies and tell them to eat - it was so cute! It's just kind of crazy that they can be hand raised, hen raised, or raised by themselves and they can still thrive.

I've always thought ducks would be kind of fun. I had one [pekin] that had been dumped at a local park but he wouldn't swim [since the chickens wouldn't swim with him]. Even when I had decoys in the pool I had for him he wouldn't go in and he got some weird eye infection from not being wet enough. I gave him to someone with a pond and a whole flock of ducks who would be his buddies.

I had a duck and chicken as pets when I was a child, but I don't remember them doing anything other than the duck swimming in the kiddie pool and poop ALL over the yard. Their names were Toody and Muldone, from an old tv show, "Car 54, Where Are You?"